


Tesserae

by dracusfyre



Series: Tony Stark Bingo Challenge [29]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Slash, Recovery, Steve Feels, Tony Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-14 07:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19268848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: For theImagineTonyandBuckyprompt(I've waited two months for this I'm so excited) Post CW—Imagine a pining Bucky picking up on how Tony seems genuinely relaxed and comfortable (dare he say happy?) around Bucky, and being really, really excited about it... then noticing how Tony minutely flinches, shies away from, and is generally afraid of Steve. Which Steve notices of course, and feels terrible about it. Imagine Bucky trying to help fix things between them like they've both helped fix him.Sometimes when things are broken all you can do is find a new way to be...though that's not necessarily a bad thing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is also a fill for my Tony Stark Bingo Square S1: "I never meant to hurt you."

If someone had asked Tony when, exactly, the Avengers Project died – which nobody did, but not because they didn’t care, in Tony’s opinion, but because they all thought they knew – he would have said it happened way before that bunker in Siberia. It even happened before the fight at the airport, but it wasn’t when Steve found out that Bucky had killed Tony’s parents and didn't tell Tony, because he really believed that Steve hadn’t _decided_ not to say anything. Steve had said, “I had been trying to find the right time to tell you,” and Tony truly believed him. After all, how many times had he tried and failed to tell Pepper about the palladium that had been slowly killing him? How long would it have taken him to tell her about the Iron Man project to begin with if she hadn’t walked in on him? No, in Tony’s opinion, the Avengers as an idea died the moment when Steve found out that SHIELD was rotten to the core with Hydra and decided not to come to Tony for help. Because no matter how Tony turned it over in his mind, he couldn’t come up with any explanation other than Steve had thought that there was a chance, no matter how tiny, that Tony was Hydra too.

Tony could see, logically, how a person could be forgiven for suspecting he was part of Hydra– he’d been the first person recruited by SHIELD for the Avengers, he knew Pierce and several Hydra senators on a first name basis, and he’d even been one of the consultants on Project Insight. If it had been anyone else, he would have been the first to say that a bit of caution was warranted. But it wasn’t anyone else, it wasn’t a stranger, it was _him._ He would have hoped that anyone who knew him would know better. He would have thought _Steve,_ despite their quarrels and differences, would have known better, but apparently not.

So instead of picking up a phone and asking for help, or even giving him a warning of what was coming, Steve let Tony hear about the political and military cataclysm in DC on the news, same as everyone else. And then on top of that had been the _Ultron_ mess –

The drafting pencil in Tony’s hand snapped as he remembered the look on Steve’s face when they’d been talking about arms dealer, the accusation and contempt he’d seen there for a flash of a second. It had been painful enough to the first time around, but when he’d realized that Steve had lost trust in him years before then, the moment had taken on a new significance.

Tossing the broken pencil to the side, Tony sighed with frustration and scrubbed his face with his hands before running them through his hair. “JARVIS, turn the music up,” he said, tired of listening to his own thoughts running in circles. Before Steve and Bucky had shown back up at the tower, looking for help, Tony had more or less managed to set aside the ball of resentment that had taken up residence under his breastbone. But now it was like Steve’s presence in the tower was like the pea under his mattress, bringing up all the old pain and making it fresh again. He knew that people probably thought he’d moved past it because he and Bucky had become…well, he wasn’t sure what they were, exactly, but in any event the truth was that Steve’s presence was rubbing salt in the wound.

Stretching his neck and shoulders, he bent back over the drafting table, trying to focus on the latest redesign for the quinjet. It worked for a while; he managed to lose himself in equations for lift and drag and thrust and torque, occasionally tapping his foot to the music, until out of the corner of his eye he saw the lab door open.

JARVIS automatically lowered the volume as Bucky walked in, but not before Tony saw him wince at the wall of noise. “JARVIS, turn the music off,” Tony said, offering Bucky a sympathetic smile. “Headache?”

“Kind of,” Bucky said, smiling back wanly. “Just a little anxiety, I guess.”

“Ah.” Tony knew how that felt. He tapped his pencil thoughtfully on his drafting table and said, “Would you like me to tell you what I’m working on?”

With a grateful nod, Bucky sat, propping his chin on his metal hand, and listened while Tony’s voice ran over him; he could tell that Tony was pitching his voice low and making an extra effort to modulate his tone so it was a rhythmic patter, and the end result was Tony’s explanation was as soothing as listening to the rain. Bucky could feel his muscles unknotting and the fizzy, aching tension in his head subside as he relaxed under the weight of Tony’s words.

“You should do one of those ASMR recordings,” Bucky said, so drowsy he was barely able to hold his head up. “I could listen to you read a phone book.”

Tony snorted. “Usually people can’t wait for me to shut up,” he said dryly. He reached into his mini-fridge under his desk and pulled out two bottles of water, offering Bucky one as he opened one for himself. “Natasha called me hyperverbal.”

“Really? Not that I’ve noticed,” Bucky said. “You strike me as more quiet and thoughtful than hyperverbal.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, toying with his drafting pencil, “I guess I’ve changed a little, since then.”

***

One night, the time of night that could be called either late night or early morning, Bucky shuffled into the shared living room and found Tony curled up on the couch, watching TV. Bucky came around the couch and saw that he was watching Mythbusters. “Mind if I join you?”

“Sure,” Tony said, sitting up a little to make room on the couch. As he sat, neither one of them said the things that had already been said enough: _couldn’t sleep? No, me either. Bad dreams? Yeah._ Instead they skipped straight to the companionable silence. After a few minutes, Tony handed a half-empty bowl of slightly stale cheesy popcorn over, and Bucky polished off the bowl while Jamie and Adam tested whether or not someone would be thrown backwards when shot by a bullet or if a car would explode if you shot the gas tank. Bucky took issue with the episode that tested whether a car would flip over if hit with an RPG, which led to Tony telling him about the time he took down a helicopter with a piano, and then suddenly the sun was coming up, rosy fingers of light drawing lines on the ceiling. Tony and Bucky were sharing a blanket, their feet tangled together in the middle of the couch, when Steve came through on his way to the kitchen.

“Morning, Buck. Morning, Tony,” he said cheerfully, barely slowing as he walked by, but it was enough. Tony sat up, and even though he piled the extra blanket on Bucky as he stood, Bucky felt the chill of his withdrawal.

“I didn’t realize how late it was,” he said lightly. “I’ve got to get to work.”

Bucky tilted his head thoughtfully as he watched Tony leave, staring at the doorway with a frown even after Tony was gone.

 

After that, it took a few days to get Tony alone, but eventually Bucky tracked him to the kitchen, finding him making coffee and slicing oranges for breakfast. “Good morning,” Tony greeted cheerfully, and used his knife to push a few orange slices towards Bucky as he grabbed another from the basket on the counter. “How are you doing?”

“Pretty well,” Bucky said, eating one mostly so he would have something to do with his hands. “You?"

"Can't complain," Tony said cheerfully as he sliced. "Slept well and there aren't any fires to put out, so I can actually take my time with breakfast." He gestured with the knife at where Bucky was fiddling with the orange peels. "You seem like you have something on your mind though."

"I just had a question for you.”

"Go for it."

“Is…um, is everything okay, between you and Steve?” It had taken Bucky a while to realize that Tony was systematically avoiding Steve. After all, they are all busy people, and Tony’s schedule was probably the craziest out of everybody’s. So it wasn’t until Bucky started making an effort to spend more time with Tony that he realized that the only thing that was consistent about Tony’s schedule was that he _wasn’t_ anywhere that Steve _was._ Steve liked to work out early in the morning, but Tony hit the gym in early evening. Tony would eat in the common area, but never when Steve was there. If they were ever in the room at the same time, Tony would leave, sometimes so quietly that Bucky would look over in the middle of a conversation and find that Tony was gone.

Tony’s movements slowed. “Sure,” Tony said neutrally. He rinsed off the knife and set it next to the sink then poured himself some coffee. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

Bucky squinted at him, wondering if he meant _here_ as in the Tower or _here_ as in alive, and decided it was probably the former. “So you accepted his apology? For, you know…” He gestured vaguely.

Tony barked out a laugh at that, sharp and bitter. “What apology? His bullshit letter, or the hangdog one he gave me when he was forced to come back and ask for help?”

Bucky blinked, startled by sudden vitriol. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging helplessly. “I just noticed that you don’t really ever seem to be around Steve, and I was wondering if it was on purpose.”

“Yeah, it’s on purpose.”

Bucky hadn’t really thought through this conversation; he especially hadn’t anticipated that Tony would just come right out and say it, so he was caught a little flat-footed. “Why?”

Tony’s mouth twisted. “Do you really need to ask?”

“Well, I mean I know…” Bucky exhaled. He looked down at his hands, flattened them out on the granite countertop next to the orange slices and cutting board. “Do you think you’ll ever forgive him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You forgave me.”

“You’re different.”

“Yeah.” Bucky swallowed thickly. “I’m worse.”

“No,” Tony said immediately. He put one hand over Bucky’s and squeezed it, meeting his eyes so Bucky could see that he meant it. “The difference is you didn’t decide to hurt me. Steve did.”

“But he said he was sorry, and he’s trying-“

“Did he say he was sorry? And even if he did, what good, exactly, is an apology?” Tony stared Bucky in the eyes and dropped the coffee mug on the floor, not even flinching when it shattered and coffee went everywhere. “Is an apology going to clean up this mess?”

The look in Tony’s eyes made Bucky’s stomach turn. “No.”

“Will it fix the mug?”

“No.”

“So what do you think Steve can do with his apologies?”

Bucky stared at the shattered mug. “Is there anything that…I don’t know, could help? Could fix it?”

Tony exhaled. “I don’t know, Bucky. Some things just can be fixed.” He waited for a long moment but Bucky didn’t know what to say, so eventually he turned away to get a broom.

***

“Did you know?”

Steve sighed, resting his head in his hands. “I suspected. So I made sure to give him his space. I figured that’s what he needed.”

“Well, what are we going to do?”

“We?” Steve lifted his head and sat back against the couch. “It’s not your problem, Bucky. I’m glad that you two have grown close, but I don’t think Tony and I will ever get there. Too much bad blood.”

“But it’s bothering you,” Bucky said. “And it obviously bothers him. Nothing’s going to get better unless you try.”

“What can I do? Apologize again? You told me what Tony thinks of my apologies.”

“Just try talking to him. At the very least you need to clear the air.”

“I don’t know, Buck.” Steve looked down at his hands. “I don’t know that I really have the right to Tony’s forgiveness, after everything.”

“Do you forgive him? For everything in the bunker?”

“Well, yeah,” Steve said, sounding like it was something so obvious he hadn’t really thought it needed saying. “Baron Zemo went through a lot of effort to find a wedge to drive us apart, and Secretary Ross and the Accords was the hammer to the wedge. If I hadn’t kept that secret about his parents, Zemo wouldn’t have had that wedge in the first place. How do I begin to make up for something like that?”

Bucky rubbed his eyes, hearing Tony’s ragged _Do you even remember them?_ echo in his thoughts. “Just try? Please? For me?”

“Why is this important to you?”

“Because…” Bucky took a deep breath. “You and Tony are the most important people in my life and I think that Tony…that Tony could be more. Maybe. But with all of this…”

Steve’s eyes softened. “Oh, Buck. Really? With Tony? That’s great, I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah.” Bucky smiled shyly. “I don’t know if he…you know, because of everything, but we’ll see.” It almost seemed like too much to hope for, that Tony could put their ugly past behind them to make a future. But he didn’t think anything good could happen when there was so much pain and anger festering in Tony’s heart.

“Ok, I’ll do my best,” Steve said. “Hopefully I won’t make it worse.”

“And maybe do it outside so there’s nothing to throw at you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Steve didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at the door to Tony’s lab. He’d honestly rather be facing down a Hydra base than have this conversation; literal land mines were much easier to deal with than conversational ones. And this was going to be even harder than he’d thought, because Tony was already giving him a message with this stubbornly closed door – Steve knew that Tony knew he was here, he knew because JARVIS knew where everyone was and JARVIS definitely would have mentioned that Steve was outside his lab. But the door stayed closed. Tony didn’t come out and ask him why he was standing here, didn’t open the door to welcome him in. Trust Tony to find a way to say _fuck you_ without even needing to be physically present, Steve thought wryly.

Steve had never felt like a coward until this moment because of how much he wanted to walk away, how easy it would be to tell himself he would do it later. But that’s what got them into this mess, and he had made a promise, so Steve took a deep breath and knocked. “Tony,” he called out when the door didn’t open. “I need to talk to you. It’s about Bucky.” At that, the door finally slid open and Tony was standing there, cleaning the grease off his hands with a shop rag.

“What about Bucky?” he said guardedly.

Steve let out the breath slowly, and for a dreadful, aching moment he let himself feel the sadness and regret that things had come to this. It was a physical pain in his chest, thinking about what could have been, the team they would have made. And maybe Tony could see that, because the look on his face slowly went from wary to watchful. “Can we take a walk?” Steve said. He started to cross his arms over his chest then thought better of it, shoving his hands into his pockets instead. “It’s important.”

“Fine,” Tony said after a moment. He disappeared into his lab for a moment, and when he returned he was shrugging into a hoodie and slipping a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. “Let’s walk.”

Steve thought that taking the first step, knocking on that door, was the hard part, but it turns out walking awkwardly next to Tony while trying to figure out how to start this conversation was _way_ worse. “Bucky wanted me to talk to you,” Steve said at a quiet patch of sidewalk, since there was no way he was going to figure out a better way to say this. “About…us.”

“Us,” Tony echoed. “There is no ‘us.’”

“That’s what he wanted us to talk about.”

“Ah.”

Steve forged ahead after that unhelpful comment. “Bucky told me that you made it clear that you weren’t interested in any more apologies, so I guess I won’t do that. But I just want you to know that I really want to try to make things better, if we can, I just need to know how.”

“Look, Rogers,” Tony said flatly, and Steve winced. When they first met it was Cap, then it became Steve, and in Siberia, it became Rogers and had apparently stayed there ever since. “This is it. There is not going to be a _better._ You made it pretty damn obvious that when the push comes to shove, you don’t trust me. Not when or where it counts. So what’s the point?” He turned to face Steve and Steve wished he could take Tony’s sunglasses off and see his eyes. “What is the goddamn point? I’ll make pretty for the papers and the photo ops, and you know damn well if the Avengers are needed I’ll be there, but other than that…” Tony shrugged and turned to keep walking. “You keep to your part of the tower and I’ll keep to mine, and never the twain shall meet.”

Steve was so surprised by Tony’s words that he stopped walking. “What do you mean, I don’t trust you? Of course I trust you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you.”

“No, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t _need_ me,” Tony corrected, still walking. After a few more steps Tony noticed that Steve had stopped, so he did too, turning around to face him.

“I’m serious, Tony,” Steve insisted. “Why do you think I don’t trust you?”

“Are you kidding?” When Steve just stared at him blankly, Tony exhaled in frustration. “When you first got wind that something was rotten in the state of SHIELD, when you had a super encrypted file to unlock and you didn’t come to me, you told me you didn’t trust me. After you nearly got blown up at Camp Lehigh and didn’t come to me, you told me you didn’t trust me. When you found out that Hydra had infested SHIELD and was trying to kill billions of people, _including me_ , with helicarriers that I helped build, and you didn’t come to me, you told me you didn’t trust me. Do I need to go on? Because I could go on. I could go on about your search for Bucky, your secret search for that goddamned Siberian bunker.” Tony threw his hands in the air. “You got mad at Fury for not telling you all the important information for an operation, and then you turn around and do the same damn thing to me! So what in the hell am I supposed to take from all of that? Huh?” Steve was silent, too stunned to think of anything to say, so Tony shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and hunched his shoulders. “I’ll tell you what I took from all of that. I realized that not only were we not friends, we weren’t partners, or teammates, or even coworkers. We were little more than strangers.”

Tony turned on his heel and started walking back to the tower, leaving Steve on the sidewalk. After a moment Steve blinked and followed him, catching up to him easily. He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder to stop him, but Tony shoved his hand away with a growl. Holding his hands up in surrender, taking a step back, Steve said, “I didn’t do those things because I didn’t trust you, Tony. I made a lot of bad calls and worse decisions, but not once did it cross my mind that I couldn’t trust you.”

“Then why? Why didn’t you come to me?” Tony shouted. “What did I do to make you think that you couldn’t come to me for help?”

“Because I was ashamed!” Steve shouted back. “Captain America was supposed to have stopped Hydra. _I_ was supposed to have stopped Hydra. Instead, I wake up and find out that they took my best friend, were trying to take my country, and had been playing me like a fool for _years._ I needed to fix it, _me,_ or...or it would have felt like my entire life would have been for nothing _._ ”

Tony stared at him. “So it was _pride?_ ” He said in disbelief.

“No! I mean – I –“ Steve stopped, blinking rapidly. “I…I guess? I just felt like I needed to do it all myself. I didn’t think that you would think that I didn’t ask for your help because I didn’t trust you! I thought you were still mad about everything with Bucky!”

“Goddammit Steve!” Tony paced away as if he couldn’t look at Steve anymore, hands raking through his hair. “You are such a hypocrite. How many times did you call _me_ reckless and arrogant, and here you were, taking on Hydra almost all by yourself because you were too stubborn to ask for help?”

“I know, I _know,_ and I’m sorry,” Steve said. He pressed the heel of his hand against his chest, against the sudden tightness there. “I can’t tell you how much I regret everything that’s happened. Everything we had after New York went to shit because I was so goddamn sure that I knew best. I don’t need you to tell me how much I fucked up, okay? I _know._ ” Tony was still halfway down the sidewalk, back turned and shoulders slumped. Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Look, I don’t expect you to forgive me. Bucky asked me to talk to you because he thought that we, uh, needed to talk, I guess. He just wanted to help. And I guess that was a good idea, because I had no idea that this is how you’ve been feeling.”

The silence stretched and Steve realized he was holding his breath.  He let it out slowly as he watched Tony rock on his heels and think, hands deep in his pockets. “You know, that is one thing that Howard and Peggy always said about you during the war,” Tony finally said. “You never called in for reinforcements, no matter how bad things got.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, staring at his feet. “Trying to help Bucky made me realized that I can’t do this alone, so I’ve been trying to get better about…that. But please, I hope you believe that I never meant to hurt you, I do trust you. I _do._ I trust you with my life, but more than that, I trust you with Bucky’s.”

Steve looked up, hopeful, but his shoulders sagged when Tony started walking away again. But Tony only went a few steps before he stopped and half turned so he could look at Steve. “You coming?” he said, and though he wasn’t smiling, there was a lightness in his eyes that hadn’t been there for years; as he jogged to catch up, Steve felt like he could really breathe for the first time in ages.

***

“Well?” Bucky asked as soon as Steve got back. He watched with consternation as Steve collapsed into an armchair, blowing out a breath in relief. “How did it go?”

“I think it helped,” Steve said. “You were right. It didn’t go at all like I expected, though.”

“In what way?”

“Well, what he was actually angry about wasn’t what I thought it was.” When Bucky raised an eyebrow, Steve said, “He thought I didn’t trust him.”

“Oh.” Bucky blinked and thought about that for a while. “Well, that makes sense. Trust is a big fucking deal to Tony, he doesn’t give it lightly. If he thought he had trusted _you_ but not vice versa, he would be really hurt.”

“Yeah.” Steve ran his fingers over the callous on his hand from holding the shield. “Anyway, I guess it’s up to Tony now. I’m not sure what to do next.”

“Well, since you just spent a lot of time talking about your feelings, you wanna go punch in the gym? I’ll spar with you.”

“Yes, please,” Steve said fervently.

 

Bucky wanted to track Tony down the very next day to talk to him, but Tony got called away to LA early in the morning on urgent Stark Industries business, so it was almost a week before Bucky saw him again. He made a plate of spaghetti and meatballs out of the giant batch that he and Steve made for dinner and headed down to Tony’s lab. He found Tony behind the wheel of his hot rod, the one he said he used to work on with his father all the time, listening to piano music and staring into space, clearly lost in thought. He was still wearing the suit from LA, though the jacket and tie had been discarded and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his forearms. Bucky hesitated, wondering if maybe Tony wanted to be alone, but either his footsteps or JARVIS or maybe the smell of spaghetti gave him away.

“Hey, troublemaker,” Tony said with a smile, turning to look at Bucky over his shoulder. “Ooh, dinner. Thanks.” He climbed out of the car and took the plate over to the couch in one corner of his lab to sit down and eat.

“It’s not much,” Bucky said, trailing after him and sitting at the other end of the couch. “Out of the jar sauce and frozen meatballs.”

“Brings back memories,” Tony said around a mouthful of food. “This was Rhodey’s specialty in college.”

“So how was LA?” Bucky asked, leaning against the arm of the couch so he could face Tony, resting his head against the back.

Tony shrugged and stabbed a meatball. “I managed to be productive around all the bullshit. Got some good sushi and Mexican food while I was out there, though. And I get to see Pepper.”

“Good.” As Bucky watched Tony eat he realized he was probably smiling dopily; he’d missed Tony while he was gone, even though it had only been a week.

Tony must have noticed him staring, because as he set his plate to the side his cheeks were looking a bit ruddy. He cleared his throat and said, “So I get the feeling you weren’t here to ask about LA.”

“Well, no, not really,” Bucky confessed. “I mean, I am excited to see you, but I was wondering if you had any new thoughts about…you know…”

“Steve?” Tony asked wryly. “Broken coffee mugs?”

Bucky shrugged, feeling a bit like a nosy busybody for prying, but he’d really been shaken by how _angry_ Tony had been, how raw his pain had seemed, and he couldn’t ignore something like that.

Tony was quiet for a long moment, fingers picking at a hole in the couch where the stuffing was coming out. “Did you know that artists can make some of the most stunning mosaics out of broken pottery?” He said eventually. “It’s apparently one of the oldest known art forms. People would take pieces of broken pottery and rocks and smooth them out to make the mosaics with. The little pieces are known as tesserae.”  A curl of cautious hope made Bucky’s heart leap and gave him the courage to put his hand on top of Tony’s, stilling his nervous fidgeting. Tony’s eyes flew up and met Bucky’s, and with an almost shy quirk of his lips, he laced their fingers together. “Looking back,” Tony continued, “I realize that circumstances kind of forced Steve and me together before we were really able to figure out how we fit. So maybe it’s not a surprise that it didn’t really work out.”

“But now you have a second chance,” Bucky ventured, squeezing Tony’s hand. “Right?”

“Right. I don’t know what its going to look like,” Tony said with a wry smile, “but at least now I’m willing to find out.” 


End file.
